STATEMENT OF CLARA HARDING, PADUCAH, KY

Our friend Phil from New Mexico sent me the following testimony by Clara Harding, the widow ofJoe Harding, one of the workers who gave his life to the USA's position within the Cold War. He worked at the gaseous diffusion plant in Paducah, KY. Union Carbide and the Dept. of Energy did virtually nothing to protect workers from the dangers of enriching uranium, even after they became aware of how dangerous the process was and that there were indeed some safeguards that should have been (and could have been) put into place to make the work of the employees at least somewhat safer. It's only been in the past few years that a significant number of safeguards have been publicized and lawsuits subsequently filed by many workers and/or their survivors.

Mrs. Harding's testimony was before the subcommittee on Immigration and Claims of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives of the One Hundred Sixth Congress, Second Session in 2000. It is the most bone-chilling description of health issues I've seen yet.

The subcommittee was taking testtimony regarding COMPENSATION FOR ILLNESSES REALIZED BY DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY WORKERS DUE TO EXPOSURE TO HAZARDOUS MATERIALS

The transcript for the entire, quite lengthy proceeding can be found here:
http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/judiciary/hju67346.000/hju67346_0.HTM#0

I realize that mining uranium is an entirely different process from enriching it. I'm not trying to pass off Mrs. Harding's testimony as an indictment of every aspect of the nuclear industry. However, I do find it quite informative and heart-breaking. It appears to be a testament to the lack of care and oversight by some of the companies involved in the nuclear industry and the Department of Energy. Mrs. Harding's testimony is found on page 480.

Her introduction:

Clara Harding is a resident of Paducah, KY, having moved there in 1951 as a young married woman after her husband, the late Joe T. Harding, got a job working for Union Carbide Nuclear Division in the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP). Mrs. Harding raised her two daughters, Martha and Clara Jo, working as an assistant to Dr. Curley, an oral surgeon to help make family ends meet when her husband's health deteriorated. She worked longer hours when he was abruptly terminated after 18 years of work by Carbide because of his illnesses. He was fired without insurance, disability or pension benefits.

For the next ten years, Mrs. Harding struggled to help her husband survive, watching his health decline rapidly, and finally losing him to stomach cancer in March, 1980. She has been a first-hand witness to Joe Harding's on-going struggle to bring to light the truth about the terrible conditions suffered by nuclear weapons workers throughout the country. She and their daughter, Martha Alls, carried on his fight after his death. Clara brought a state workers compensation case for widows benefits in 1983, only to have it dismissed 12 years later for failure to meet the statue of limitations. The order stated that for her to meet the filing deadline, under Kentucky law, she would have had to file her widows case five years before her husband died. In 1997, after fifteen years of legal battle, she settled her claim for a nuisance value of $12,000.

In September of 1999, Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson, came to Paducah and presented her with the Secretary's Gold Medal, saying that she had put a face on the Cold War. Clara Harding continues to live alone in Paducah on a fixed income, babysitting and doing volunteer work in the community. She enjoys needlepoint and watching C–SPAN. She attends Broadway Church of Christ in Paducah.

The Summary:

Clara Harding's testimony will cover her life with her late husband, Joe T. Harding, who worked at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Paducah, Kentucky, before dying in 1980 of what he and she allege were work-related illnesses. Because of his disabilities and his ''trouble-making'' in reporting health and safety problems at the plant, Joe Harding was terminated by Union Carbide in 1971. Clara Harding will testify about her husband's subsequent fight for his life and his tireless exposition of DOE's cover-ups right up until the day of his death, including trips to meet the Secretary of Energy Charles Duncan in 1979, as well as her own meeting with Secretary of Energy Richardson in 1999. Her testimony will also detail her struggle after Joe Harding's death with the Department of Energy and Union Carbide, regarding a workers compensation widows benefits case she filed in 1983, as well as her feelings about the current proposed nuclear workers compensation legislation now before this Subcommittee.

Her statement:

Mr. Chairman and other honorable subcommittee members, I thank you for allowing me to speak today not only in memory of my husband, Joe Harding, but on behalf of all workers like him, and on behalf of all the surviving families who have experienced what we—my daughter, Martha, and I—have experienced. We need Congress to do the right thing, after putting it off for over forty years, and passing a law to compensate workers and their families who have been killed cell by cell, atom by atom, by work we were told was to further the national interest and protect all of our children from harm.

Ms. HARDING. I am Clara Harding. I am from Paducah, and I live in Paducah, Kentucky. I have lived there since my husband, Joe Harding, began working at the Union Carbide plant in 1952. He worked there for 18 and a half years. He was terminated because he was too ill to work. Then he had his pension, his Social Security, his health, his insurance taken from him by the company. I have pictures here to show you to make sure that I am not telling you--

Mr. SMITH. Good. And, Ms. Harding, if you would pull that microphone a little bit more close to your mouth.

Ms. HARDING. Is that fine now?

Mr. SMITH. Yes. Thank you.

Ms. HARDING. Am I speaking loud enough?

Mr. SMITH. Now you are, yes.

Ms. HARDING. I want to thank you all for having me here today. I have longed for it for 20 years now to come to Washington, DC, and let people know what I have been through with.

He had a very bad time with his health from the age of 40. He had 35 percent of his stomach removed. He had sores all over his body. He was very anemic. He had fingernails growing out of the palms of his hands, soles of his feet, his elbows, his wrists. Finally he died in March 1980 of stomach cancer at age 58.

Fifty men were on this list before Joe died that had been having trouble. After he was terminated in 1971, he tried to tell the world he knew he was one of the only workers who would talk about how bad things were. He was so smart and knew so much; very few would listen. He even came to Washington in 1973 and talked to Congress and to the White House and to the Secretary of Energy and to the press. It turns out he was right and we should have believed.

After Joe died, I filed a workmen's comp case in Kentucky. DOE Carbide fought me for 15 years. DOE must have spent a million dollars to fight my claim worth $50,000. In 1997, I ended up getting $12,000 of workmen's comp. The judge said I should have filed my widow's claim 15 years before he died. I never heard of filing such a claim before somebody died. I didn't know he was going to die. The paperwork shocked us. It is taller than me, over 6,000 documents, five and a half feet of paper.